Nebraska biogas project scheduled for fall completion

Robert Pore

Tuesday

Jul 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 29, 2008 at 10:36 AM

A first-of-its-kind biogas facility at the JBS Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island, Neb., got a big boost Monday as the project took the next step toward its fall completion deadline. The facility will use proven anaerobic digester technology to convert animal waste and other byproducts into a methane-rich biogas to be used as fuel.

A first-of-its-kind biogas facility at the JBS Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island, Neb., got a big boost Monday as the project took the next step toward its fall completion deadline.

Environmental Power Corp. of Portsmouth, N.H., announced that its subsidiary, Microgy Grand Island, has completed financing involving the sale of $7 million of tax-exempt bonds issued by the city of Grand Island.

Environmental Power Corp. Vice President Mark Hall said proceeds of the bonds will be used to finance construction of the biogas project. The facility is under construction and is expected to begin producing biogas by the end of the year.

"This represents another important step in the growth of our business and demonstrates that financing is available on competitive terms for our projects," said Rich Kessel, Environmental Power president and chief executive officer.

He said the project-backed, tax-exempt financing markets remain accessible for such projects despite the recent troubles in the credit markets.

"Ultimately, the value of the gas that we produce and the waste solutions that we provide our partners are what drive the success of our projects," Kessel said.

Hall said the Grand Island facility will produce and sell biogas to the adjacent JBS Swift plant under a 15-year agreement.

He said the facility will use proven anaerobic digester technology to convert animal waste and other byproducts of the JBS Swift plant into a methane-rich biogas to be used as fuel in the plant's existing boilers.

At capacity, the facility is expected to generate the energy equivalent of 1.7 million gallons of oil. It would offset approximately 25 percent of JBS Swift's annual purchase of natural gas.

In addition, Hall said, to reduce the plant's dependence on fossil fuels, JBS Swift will be able to reduce the land application of organic waste materials from its operations.

Groundbreaking for the facility took place last December.

The JBS Swift plant in Grand Island slaughters more than 36,000 head of cattle weekly. JBS Swift is the largest beef processing company in the world.

At the time of the groundbreaking, Tom Siegrisp, JBS Swift's environmental manager, said the project would improve the plant's economic performance by providing a cheaper alternative supply of gas to power the plant's boilers.

Siegrisp said between 15,000 and 20,000 gallons of waste will go into the system and be processed into methane gas.

That waste is now either processed through the plant's wastewater system or applied to agricultural fields as fertilizer.

"This will decrease our greenhouse gas emissions because the methane that will normally be released from anaerobic digestion will now be used to power our boilers, and it will also significantly decrease the amount of solid waste we haul off site for land disposal," Siegrisp said.

Anaerobic digestion is a naturally occurring process in which microorganisms break down organic material in the absence of oxygen.

The new biogas system will employ three skilled operators along with a facility manager.

The gas production facility will consist of two 1.2 million-gallon digesters, as well as a purification system that cleans the gas prior to its use.

Hall said construction saw some downtime this spring because of heavy rains.

"It has taken a while to get things going in earnest, but we have been moving right along," he said. "We are generally on target and expect to begin producing gas here in the fourth quarter of this year."

Total capital cost for the project is more than $9 million, Hall said.

While his company provides the same technology to dairy farms in Texas and California, JBS Swift is the first slaughter plant in the United States to utilize the anaerobic digestion process.

The potential of turning animal waste into renewable energy is huge for Nebraska. State slaughter plants kill more than 7 million head of cattle and 7 million head of hogs annually and lead the nation in commercial red meat production.

And with energy cost increasing, Hall said, this technology has a strong growth potential.

"The project in Grand Island is unique, in that it's the first application of this type of technology at a large beef processing plant," Hall said.

He said people are waiting to see how this project will go.

"But we have had a lot of continual interest since we announced the project," Hall said. "With energy prices being higher, you have the meat industry, across the board, talking about the impact of energy prices on the products they deliver to the market and how important it is mitigating those high energy costs, whether it's direct costs or the costs that go into food and other inputs they rely on.”

The Grand Island Independent

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